


Neither Here Nor There (Yet)

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 08:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20812424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: They're stuck on a bridge in traffic, and misunderstanding each other.





	Neither Here Nor There (Yet)

Blair’s coffee was nearly cold and the scent hung stale inside the truck; Jim irritably rolled the window down, before craning his head to look through the gap in the traffic blocking the bridge. Of all the evenings to get stuck in traffic….

“You could always get out and help,” Blair said, taking another sip. How could he drink that?

“No point, Chief,” Jim said with heavy patience. “Nobody’s hurt, nobody’s fighting and there’s an eager beaver swarm helping clean up.”

“I just thought you were getting a little restless.” Blair knew restless. His hands fidgeted around the coffee cup right this moment.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m stuck on Barrett Bridge because some idiot couldn’t secure his load properly. And if you don’t stop drinking that disgusting coffee you’ll have a problem because we’re not going anywhere fast, and I’ll have to arrest you if you take a whizz over the edge here.”

“Jesus, James. “

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Blair’s hand waved in annoying, incomprehensible semaphore. “It means that we’re stuck on Barrett Bridge because of some idiot and you’re pissed off, but you’re pissed off because of last night, not because of idiots and my disgusting coffee.” Blair’s satirical edge on ‘disgusting’ needled Jim a little further into irritation. Damn straight his cup of cold coffee was disgusting.

“I’m not pissed off about last night. Last night was fine. Good, even.” That was utter truth; but Jim had been thinking about what it meant. Could mean. A man could think, couldn’t he?

“I might have agreed with you about that last night, or even this morning, but this was an entire day in which you have been a fucking grouch, Jim.”

“I have not been a goddamned grouch!” Well, not until now. His ears echoed with his shout and Blair hunched down in his seat.

“Oh, fuck this.” Blair opened his door, dashed the remains of his coffee to the ground, and made to get out. “I can probably get home quicker fucking walking anyway.”

Blair sure had fucking on the brain this evening, didn’t he? 

“Chief.” Jim fought to make his tone conciliatory. “Get back in, will you?”

Blair hesitated, one foot on the bridge, and then he sighed, and settled back in his seat, the door firmly shut. They were ready to go, if only they could get somewhere.

“It doesn’t have to happen again. No big deal, man, just one of those things that happen when people are in each other’s space all the time.”

Just one of those things. God. Hell of a thing to hear Blair’s, flat, defeated voice and realise how he’d misinterpreted Jim’s quiet today. Jim leaned into the support of the steering wheel a moment. “We’ll talk,” he said. “When we get home. And I’m sorry. I was thinking, letting things sink in, but I should have realised you might not see it that way.”

Blair’s look was sidelong more ways than one. Dubious. Unsure. Hopeful, because Blair was like that, always. 

“Talking is good. I can talk.”

Jim turned his head. “If there’s one thing among the many you excel at…” he said, and hoped that Blair would take it the right way. Blair’s small, relieved grin told him ‘okay,’ and also ‘don’t think you’re off the hook, Ellison’.

People were getting back into their vehicles on the southern side of the bridge. “Looks like we’ll be on the move soon,” Jim said, and put the truck back in gear.

Maybe tomorrow morning, if Jim could find the right words to say tonight, he’d know how Blair’s mouth tasted after drinking the good roast they kept in the kitchen at home. Maybe no more than that, toes dipped in rather than last night’s cannonball leap. They’d talk. They’d see.


End file.
